Just a Moment with Academia

Age is one of the biggest tricks ever played on us.  Today I was thinking about my school, Eureka College and its long history.  I feel “old,” 18 in body, but somewhere around 65 in spirit (just ask any of my church camp family).  However, I realized as I stared out the second floor window in my philosophy class (most of my best blogs come from that class) that there was a time before me and my contemporaries. There was even a time before my philosophy professor.  For that matter, there was a time before Ronald Reagan!  There was a time back in 1899 that a man, about my age, sat in the same classroom I was in and did some of the same things I was doing now.

For a long moment, I felt so insignificant.  That is the way of academia, though.  We are led to believe that we know the world, whether due to our human nature or the sheer amount of knowledge we process.  During some of the moments, we feel like masters of nature and the possessors of the future.  Then we take a step back from the bookcase we were studying so intently, that treasure trove where we clung to every word on every page in the desperate thirst for knowledge; we carefully look down the hallway and see that the hallway leads to infinity and bookcases of knowledge line the rest of the hallway as well. 

The individual bookcases in academia lure us into thinking that we are immortal and omnipotent, if only for a second.  However, suddenly and without grace, academia shocks us back to real life and shows us just how much we really do not know.  The confidence is eroded, but in its own way, the nature of academia coupled with the human spirit provides some of the best motivation to recover from our powerlessness.

Oh, but for that moment we are kings and queens of the best time.  For that moment, we are the masters and we are the possessors.  For those few moments of our lives, we have a handle on control and we have endless life and we, in so many ways and emotions, have the world.  Living on that constant high would be unsafe, but how wonderful it feels, for just a few, fleeting moments.